Message posted by fighterstory on May 03, 2006 at 18:47:11 PST:
Hello I am new to message boards but I have a great story to share. I found the site by searching for information on YF-24. What I found was interesting but I know much of it to be wrong. Here is my story that I have posted on other message boards also searching for more data. An old friend I used to work with forwarded me a photo of a plane that was posted on another forum. Not just any plane, but a secret one that we had worked on together back in 1990. History tells that the ATF program survived and we now have the F-22 as a result. The plane so many of us worked so hard to build is now buried in the desert and forgotten. When we all first saw the Sukhoi S.37 we shared knowing looks. It wouldn’t surprise me if Russian satellites had been watching the YF-24 from the moment we rolled it out of the hanger. If anyone knows anything else about the YF-24 program please share it. Too many people worked to hard for this plane to be forgotten in history.
You could easily mistake it for a regular F-15 but if you look closely you can see that the wings are swept forwards. It’s the YF-24 and we gave it the nickname Eagle II. Only one airframe was assembled and the whole project was conducted in great secrecy. It was to be a contingency in case the ATF program was cancelled. Back then with the collapse of the Soviet Union so close, people in government were asking whether the stealth ATF was really needed. The USAF wanted to be ahead of the game if the ATF was cancelled so it contracted McDonnell Douglas to build the YF-24 just in case. I think it was kept secret even after the YF-22 was selected was because it out performed the YF-22 in almost every aspect except stealth. Anything that reflected badly on the F-22 program was seen as a threat to continued funding so they covered its existence up.
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